Folk
Alley and NPR Music returned to Nashville to present a webcast of the Americana Music Association’s 12th Annual Honors and Awards
ceremony presented by Nissan from historic Ryman Auditorium. on Wednesday,
Sept. 18, 2013.

Revered
Nashville songsmiths Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell took home Duo/Group
and Album of
the Year honors, while roots-rock newcomers Shovels & Rope, featuring Nashville native Cary Ann Hearst, won
Emerging Artist
and Song of the
Year awards.

The
Americana Honors & Awards house band led by Buddy Miller, included Don Was, Larry Campbell, Marco Giovino, John
Deaderick, Jim Hoke and the McCrary Sisters. Artists return to the stage to
perform "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight" to close the event.

The
Americana Honors & Awards, aired live on AXS TV, NPR.org, Sirius/XM's "Outlaw Country" and
WSM. "Austin City Limits" will broadcast an edited special Nov. 23.

Voice of
America and Bob Harris of BBC2 will
broadcast overseas in the following weeks.

** Listen to a recording of the entire show (161
minutes), including performances by Shovels & Rope, Emmylou Harris &
Rodney Crowell, and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter at folkalley or npr.org

Wall Street JournalWhen a Shelter Becomes a Home...The Americana Music Association's
annual awards show Wednesday celebrates a young but growing genre that was once
a refuge for roots music veterans.....

Martina McBride
@martinamcbride Such an AMAZING night of music tonight at the @AmericanaFest.
Inspiring and beautiful performances. So happy to be there!

JD McPherson
@jdmcphersonjr Had a blast yesterday at @AmericanaFest , so good to see my
Oklahoma compadre @johnrfullbright and many other giants perform!

Dwight Yoakam
@DwightYoakam Thank you to @AmericanaFest for the enormous honor you have given
me & 3 Pears. I am humbled by having been given Artist of The Year Award.

Related Article:

Billboard:
When Country Becomes Americana

What’s a country artist to do when
the hits stop coming?

In
another era, the options were to retire a la Barbara Mandrell or to keep
playing the oldies in a scaled-down manner, as did the subject of John Anderson’s
“Would You Catch a Falling Star.”

The new
option is to experiment a little, maintain some uncertain tie to roots music
and rebrand as an Americana artist.

Rodney & Emmylou
Click to enlarge (Getty Photo)

Emmylou Harris and Dwight Yoakam, both of whom commanded
attention from mainstream country radio with adventurous recordings earlier in
their careers, occupy two of the four artist of the year slots on the ballot
for this year’s American Music Honors & Awards, which will be presented
Sept. 18 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

Harris and Rodney Crowell, who scored five No. 1 country singles with his 1988
album “Diamonds & Dirt”, are also up for Americana album for Old Yellow
Moon.

It’s
hardly the first time the Americana Music Assn. embraced a country act on the
backside of a successful commercial run. Johnny
Cash received three posthumous Americana awards in 2003 for the work he did
with producer Rick Rubin. Loretta Lynn was a double-winner the next year after working
with Jack White. Rosanne Cash likewise earned an album of the year trophy in
2010 for The List.

Not that
every country artist could segue into Americana. It’s hard to imagine the genre
embracing Moe Bandy, Earl Thomas Conley or SHeDAISY.

It’s sort
of like criminology—one has to prove intent. In the case of
Americana, it’s the intent to risk commercial reputation in favor of artistic pursuit.

“I look at the Americana genre,
and I think it’s really an art form compared with commercial art,”
Americana Assn. executive director Jed Hilly says. “I think that the country music genre as we
know it today has moved into more of the commercial art form. It’s not a
criticism, it’s just a fact”.

“The artists in the Americana world, they really work like a
sculptor, or a painter or an artist. They’re reaching back into
history, in some ways, to get their inspiration. And there’s no question in my
mind that Dwight, Emmy, they studied the masters, the same way Picasso studied
the masters. They’re inspired by Charlie Louvin, they’re inspired by Hank
Williams. That’s my take on why they live in the Americana genre.”

Mirriam-Webster
officially added Americana to the dictionary in 2011, defining it as “a genre
of American music having roots in early folk and country music.” Americana
likewise embraces other rootsy forms—blues, black gospel and bluegrass, for
example—but it’s still somewhat murky to many outsiders, despite Hilly’s
insistence otherwise.

Yoakam’s presence in the category
adds to the confusion. Warner Music Nashville never worked his
critically lauded 2012 album 3 Pears to country radio (he is, reportedly, no
longer on the label), and there’s reason to believe it never would have
received much attention at mainstream radio.

Jed Hilly

Yet if
you strip away the imaging and marketing, and consider 3 Pears solely on its
sonic merits, it’s not unlikely that his raucous brand of country could be
accepted by the actual listener right alongside Jason Aldean and Florida
Georgia Line.

Americana
generally distances itself from such mainstream acts, though it welcomed Dierks Bentley to its stage when he
worked his bluegrass/alt-country album Up on the Ridge. And it’s not entirely
impossible other one-off forays outside the mainstream would be accepted. Hilly
hasn’t heard Alan Jackson’s The Bluegrass Album and could only react to George
Strait’s recent hint that a Western swing-style album may be in his future.

“Great, if Alan
Jackson is exploring the roots,” Hilly says. “Kudos to him, kudos to George, for pushing
the envelope. That’s what an artist does.” There’s that art thing
again. Part of the reason Americana remains a little hazy—who decides whether the
primary motivation is art or commerce?

MUSIC STORE
Check out THE COUNTRY ALBUMS of 2014 / 2015
Discover, BUY and check out forthcoming Country album releases for 2015 and some you may have missed in 2014...
Go to the
Music Store Page or Click LOGO above THANK YOU!

AMAZON STORES
We have kept this site advert free but Anything you purchase via Amazon UK helps Country Routes Blog Thank you!
Anything you purchase via Amazon.com helps Country Routes Blog!
Discover what happened in country music on a particular date or in a particular month, get the history of your favorite country songs or your favorite country artists